Since launching last August, "The Devouring", an incredibly ambitious multiplayer survival horror game created inside VRChat, has become a huge hit within that virtual world's community -- level designer Lakuza tells me it's since attracted nearly 350,000 total visits and counting. So I wasn't totally surprised to learn that two of the original development team members are now turning "The Devouring" into a standalone game for the Quest and PC VR.
"The Devouring started just as a fun project with friends, but it turned out to be a great development experience," as Fionna, one half of the newly-formed Studio CyFi, tells me. "After the response to the release [in VRChat], we started to think about taking it further. Cyan and I have been working together as a great team for a few years now, and it just started to make sense to work together to make The Devouring available on its own."
This will be the first professional game created by her co-founder Cyan, who at first had only planned for it to be an experience in VRChat. "[B]ut realizing the success of The Devouring meant that it could become more than just a VRChat world," he tells me.
That The Devouring has become popular enough to transition into a standalone game is a pretty sure sign that VRChat has reached escape velocity as a UGC platform. Longtime readers may remember Tringo, a user-made game made for Second Life that became such a hit in that world, in 2006 a media company bought the rights and published it on the Nintendo Gameboy Advance and other platforms.
But VRChat the company is expected to soon introduce monetization options for creators on the platform -- so why not just wait for that?
So I meant what I said in the credits of The Devouring--I still hate horror. But I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. @CyanLaser and I have formed a new company, and we will be bringing The Devouring to other platforms. https://t.co/FrVXZDTzr0 pic.twitter.com/iGrMSDdGW1
— Jen DW / Fionna (@jendaviswilson) March 30, 2021
"While VRChat is an amazing platform," Fionna tells me, "it does have technical limits, especially for Oculus Quest. We wanted a way to reach more users with The Devouring. Using this as a starting project, it also gives us more opportunities in the future. We plan to continue to develop content for VRChat as well, of course. We don't know what the monetization plans for VRChat are, but hopefully they will also fit with our goals when they come about."
Legends and Lakuza, the other creators of the original game in VRChat, opted not to go pro:
"[W] have jobs already and my free time is spent on working on personal projects/worlds," Lakuza tells me. "I'll be there to support and cheer on the two and help out in small ways should they need any since the four of us are close friends."
Hat tip: Adeon.
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